You always remember your first.
Doesn’t matter what it is, you always remember it. Good or bad it stays with you for life. I would venture a guess that just about everyone reading this can think back to their first fish they caught on a fly rod. For me, I have some hazy memories of fishing some stocked kiddie pond but the one that really sticks out is fishing with my dad on some little creek near Strawberry Reservoir in Utah.
Jess and I had just finished a week at a camp in Bear River, WY and Mark and our mom picked us up before us boys headed out for a couple days of fishing. I can’t seem to remember exactly how old I was for this (young!) but I do recall the overwhelming excitement I felt. I’ll never forget dad catching some small cutthroat on a dry then handing me the rod and me completely panicking. When you’re a kid and all of a sudden you’ve got a wild beast on the end of a long and whippy stick, what else is there to do? We eventually got it in, and that is the first trout I remember “catching” on a fly rod.
Many fishing trips with dad, thousands of trout, and hundreds and hundreds of hours spent on the water later, here I am with a girlfriend of six months that has never fly fished before. Hell, she hasn’t ever even had a fishing license until we got her one last weekend. We’ve been trying to get out on the water for months, but it’s hard to get someone out for their first trip in the winter.
Taking someone out for their first trip is always a bit of a gamble, especially if it’s someone like a girlfriend. You want them to have a good time and enjoy it, and hopefully understand a bit of what makes you want to devote your life to it. It needs to be a short trip, not all day long, but long enough to get the basic skills down and hopefully catch a few fish. It needs to be fun otherwise that first trip might be the last.
Everything lined up for Kaitlyn and I to get out last Sunday. We woke up early and headed to the Upper Madison. Since everyone and their dog is fishing the Upper right now, I expected a complete zoo. Imagine my surprise when we were the first ones there, and didn’t see a soul until almost 2 in the afternoon…
You hope against all hope that it’s going to be a good day when a rank beginner hooks into two nice fish within minutes of starting to cast a rod. She lost them both but the feeling of a fish on the end is a good one. We kept fishing downstream, hitting the good looking water and letting her get the feel of a slick river bottom beneath her feet.
Eventually we ended up in a spot I knew was loaded with fish. I helped her wade out, told her where to cast, make the mend, and then we both watched that indicator dive down into the deep… A quick set and she was hooked up! It’s always kind of funny how all beginners grab the reel and line and hold on for dear life even when you’re yelling “let go of the reel!”. With some guidance, she brought the fish close enough for me to grab. I’m holding it, but the trout below is Kaitlyn’s first ever:
By any standard, it was a beautiful fish. A solid 18” rainbow, richly colored up and full of zest. She couldn’t have been more ecstatic. A huge smile lit up her face, even when the fish slipped out of reach before I could get a picture of her with it. Then she did it again. And again. By the end of the day, she had caught four big rainbows and missed probably 6 more. Not a bad first day.
I love to share my passion for fly fishing. It’s even better when I can share it with someone I love. Seeing her face light up and hearing her talk about how she wants to go again and how much fun it all was more than I could have asked for. And now Kaitlyn understands a little bit better what drives me to do what I do.
I hope that she and I will have many more fishing adventures to come. But she can always look back on that day and remember where it all started. You always remember your first. I hope for all of you that they are good memories. Now go help someone make memories of their own.
